Unbreathed Memories

by Marcia Talley

  Georgina’s breathing had steadied, but she began moaning. I found myself shouting, hoping to get her attention. “How do I get there, Georgina? Roland to Lake and turn right on Coldbrook?”

  “Pleeeease!”

  I could see that I was on my own. I checked my watch. Three-fifteen. If I was lucky, I could beat rush-hour traffic and make it to Baltimore well before dark. After dark, I doubted I’d be able to find a white elephant in the deeply wooded, exclusive neighborhood, even if it were wearing a neon tutu. I threw the packet of chicken into the fridge, scribbled a note to Paul suggesting he nuke a Stouffer’s frozen macaroni and cheese, and headed for my car.

  As I sped up Interstate 97, I wondered what on earth had happened. Did Georgina have a difficult therapy session? If so, what? What could be so awful that she couldn’t share it with her husband? Was their marriage on the rocks? Or maybe she had worked herself up into such a state that she didn’t want her children to see her that way. I had pressed Georgina pretty hard for answers, but she only cried harder and pleaded with me to hurry.

  I took the ramp to the beltway at thirty miles over the posted limit, exited at the BW Parkway, and broke all speed records getting to the stadium, where I peeled off on Martin Luther King and headed straight through the city to the JFX. At the Northern Parkway exit I darted across three lanes of traffic to make a left turn on Falls Road, then headed east on Lake Avenue. I had reached the Boys Latin School when I realized I must have overshot the turning to Coldbrook Lane, so I U-turned in the school’s drive and headed back down the hill. Coldbrook appeared almost immediately on my right. I turned and drove slowly along the narrow, forested lane, hoping I would recognize the Sturges house from the front, but none of these expensive homes had been built anywhere near the street.

  At the end of the lane, I came to a dead end at a wooden gate. I steered to one side, parked my car on the soft earth near a pile of leaves, and climbed out. The Sturges house had to be near here somewhere. I remembered seeing this gate during our hike.

  To my left, a driveway angled up steeply and disappeared around a corner. A box containing salted sand and a small shovel stood near the mailbox, but there was no name painted on the mailbox, just a number. Still, it seemed a likely candidate. I looked around, feeling guilty, then opened the mailbox and thrust my hand in. I pulled out a packet of magazines and long envelopes held together by a rubber band. The letter on top was addressed to Diane V. Sturges, Ph.D., and another envelope announced that she was a member of the Mystery Guild book club. Her husband, Bradley, had investments with Salomon, Smith, Barney and read Sports Illustrated and Forbes. I stuffed the mail back in the box, then, leaving my car parked on the street where it wouldn’t get blocked in, I hurried up the drive.

  At the top of the hill, the driveway widened enough to accommodate two cars and circled around under an elaborate, pillared portico attached to a substantial, modern, yellow brick dwelling. A spur led to a three-car garage, also made of brick. One garage door stood open. No cars were in sight.

  I stepped up to the front door and stood there for a few minutes, my finger hesitating over the bell. What if I rang it and somebody answered? What would I say? Excuse me, but may I use your phone, I seem to be lost? I could always claim to be collecting money for charity. Or be a Jehovah’s Witness. I mashed the doorbell button with my thumb. Silly. I would simply ask for my sister.

  When no one came to the door after several minutes, I peered through a window. Everything inside was dark. Where was Georgina?

  To the right of the entranceway a flagstone path led around the house, passing through a well-tended garden that, in summer, would be brilliant with color but now contained mostly boxwood, rhododendron, and ivy. I picked my way carefully along the path, hugging the foundation of the house, then stopped. A sign, “Office,” hung on a white-painted door. The door stood ajar.

  I pushed it open with my palm. “Georgina?” There was no answer. I stepped into a small, prettily wallpapered entrance hall simply furnished with a small table, an umbrella stand, and a brass coatrack with Georgina’s green winter coat and paisley scarf hanging on it. Ahead of me a short flight of stairs, lushly carpeted, led up to a landing. I took three steps. “Georgina?”

  I gasped when Georgina appeared unexpectedly at the head of the stairs, looking like a madwoman. Her hair tumbled loose about her shoulders, and her mascara had melted into black streaks that ran down her cheeks. “Thank God you’re here!” She stumbled toward me and hugged me so fiercely that I thought my ribs would break and we’d go tumbling backward down the stairs together.

  I took hold of my sister’s arms and eased her into a sitting position on the landing, keeping one arm around her shoulder. “Now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Georgina pulled herself into a ball, knees to her chest, and rocked back and forth, sobbing. “Diane’s dead.”

  “Your therapist? My God! Are you sure?”

  Georgina nodded her head, her lips a thin, tight line. “Look.”

  Georgina pointed. I stood and passed through a pair of French doors into a simply but elegantly furnished office, dominated by a large walnut desk. Someone, probably a decorator, had arranged small Oriental rugs casually about on the oatmeal-colored wall-to-wall carpeting, A perfectly normal-looking black leather sofa stood against the left wall, a matching overstuffed armchair angled next to it. I strolled around the desk. A green blotter. A pen. An appointment book. A framed photograph of a handsome man in his mid-sixties. Dr. Sturges’s husband? Her father? Who could say. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.

  “What are you talking about, Georgina?” I yelled. “There’s nobody here!” I was afraid my sister had really lost her marbles.

  “The balcony.”

  Beyond the desk, a set of sliding glass doors led out to the balcony that I had admired last summer. Through the glass I could see an iron bench, a small glass-topped table, and, next to it, a large urn containing an evergreen of some sort. Traces of snow remained piled here and there in the corners where the rays of the winter sun couldn’t reach. Again, nothing appeared out of order. Yet something must be wrong to have frightened Georgina and upset her so badly. I slid open the door and stepped out onto the deck.

  A cold wind blew in off the lake, roaring across my ears and whipping my scarf back over my shoulder. I stood shivering at the end of the balcony, surrounded by tall trees. Through their bare, dancing branches I could see the waters of the lake just below. Off to the left, a lone bicyclist stood on his pedals, then shifted to a lower gear as he huffed and puffed his way up the bike trail. The trail curved toward me, then away again toward the lake, over a small bridge.

  Ivy snaked along a brick wall that separated the Sturges property from the park. Inside its boundaries lay piles of dried leaves, patches of snow, a small cedar tree, rocks, a blue shoe. Another blue shoe, attached to the leg of a woman wearing a blue suit. A woman whose body now lay broken over the face of a boulder, one leg bent cruelly under the other, her left arm flung out over her head, her eyes blank and wide. From the size of the dark stain that had spread over the surface of the boulder, and from the unnatural angle of the woman’s head in relation to her shoulders, I knew she was very, very dead.

  I grasped the railing and swallowed hard, fighting the urge to throw up. Without touching the doors, I hurried back to Georgina. “What happened? Did you see her fall?”

  “She was like that when I got here.” Georgina gasped, one hand to her mouth. “I came for my appointment like always and I looked all around … Oh, God.” She sniffed noisily and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Diane wasn’t in her office, and then I felt a draft and noticed that the doors were open. Oh, God! Oh, God!” She rocked faster and faster. “I wish I’d never gone out there!”

  I took Georgina by the arms and shook her. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I was too scared. I called you.”

  “We have to call the police!”

  “But my
fingerprints are all over the place! Oh, Hannah, just get me out of here! I’m her last patient on Fridays. Nobody needs to know I was here. We can call the police from the pay phone down by the pizza place.”

  She started to cry again, great racking sobs just like when we were kids and I was stuck baby-sitting her. I was a sucker for it then and even worse at resisting it now. “Georgina, we have to call nine-one-one. If there’s even the slightest chance she could be alive …” I stepped back in the direction of the office. I hadn’t seen a phone on the desk, but there had to be one in there somewhere.

  “No!” Georgina’s scream caught me off guard. When I turned around a split second later, she had bolted down the stairs, grabbed her coat and scarf, and disappeared.

  I raced after her—out the door, up the path, down the driveway, and into the street, where I caught up with her at my car, pounding on the locked door with her fist. “Stop it, Georgina!” As serious as the situation was, the first thought that came to mind was that she would ruin my paint. I unlocked the driver’s-side door and popped the locks. “Get in.”

  Georgina silently obeyed, settling into the passenger seat, hugging her bunched-up coat like a security blanket. I knew I should go back to the house and call the police, but I was afraid to leave my sister alone. No telling what she’d do in her present condition. I considered the forest, deep and thick, surrounding us on three sides and, only yards away, the lake, dark and cold, its shoreline rimmed with ice. Against my better judgment I gave her a disapproving, big-sister glare and said, “OK, we’ll call from the pizza place. I don’t suppose it matters where we call the police from, as long as we call them.”

  Five minutes later, I was standing in a phone booth at the Lakefalls Pizzeria dialing nine-one-one. “There’s been an accident. A bad fall,” I told the operator. “Two twenty-one Coldbrook.” When she asked for my name, I panicked and hung up. Why did I do that? I leaned against the wall and counted slowly to ten. In the light from the restaurant, I could see Georgina, where she sat huddled in the front seat of my car. I went inside the pizzeria and bought her a Coke.

  “Here, drink this.”

  “I’m not thirsty.”

  “You should drink something. Here.” I grabbed her left arm and pulled it toward me. Her hand came out of her pocket, clutching several sheets of paper. “What the hell’s that?”

  Georgina thrust the paper back into the pocket of her sweater, like a child. “Nothing.”

  “Yes it is. Let me see.” I set the Coke down on the floor of the car and held out my hand, palm up.

  “No.”

  “Georgina!”

  Slowly Georgina pulled the crumpled wad from her pocket and held it out to me, eyes downcast. “It’s pages from her appointment book. I took it because my name’s in it.”

  “For the love of God, Georgina! You’re her patient! Your name’s supposed to be in there!” I snatched the pages from her fingers. “First you make me guilty of leaving the scene of an accident—maybe even a crime!—and now you’re tampering with the evidence!” Sirens began wailing, approaching in our direction down Falls Road. I stuffed the pages from Dr. Sturges’s appointment book into the depths of my bag. “And it’s too late to put them back now, the police are already on their way.” I threw my head back against my headrest and closed my eyes. “Oh, God, what a mess! I’ll deliver these to the police myself, but in the meantime, I’m taking you home. You’re going to have a nice, hot bath and tell Scott all about it. You’re going to pull yourself together. Then, first thing in the morning, you’re going to talk to the police.”

  But it didn’t quite work out that way. I should have known better after watching Homicide all those years on NBC. The Baltimore police would turn up on Georgina’s doorstep the following morning, even before Sean and Dylan made it out of bed to turn on the television.

  chapter

  3

  Nothing that happened after I brought Georgina home from Dr. Sturges’s prepared me for an early-morning visit from Baltimore’s Finest, least of all the wine. It would help me to relax, I reasoned; but after too many glasses to count, I decided I’d just sleep forever, even on the lumpy mattress that spat cookie crumbs all over me when I wrestled the ancient hide-a-bed open in Georgina’s TV room. Whatever was in Scott’s Box-o’-Chablis knocked me out cold from eleven-thirty until five, at which time my eyes flew open and my throbbing head told me it wished I’d had the brains to take some Alka-Seltzer before putting it to bed. As I lay flat on my back with the pale light of a gray dawn creeping around the corners of the window shade, I relived the previous evening.

  Georgina had been a total wreck. The minute we hit the house she collapsed into a chair like a puppet with cut strings, leaving me to explain to Scott what had happened. He listened, nodding, with red-rimmed eyes as cold and pale as arctic ice, then folded his catatonic wife into his arms and led her away in the direction of the bedroom. I think Scott really wanted me to go home. To tell the truth, I felt like a fifth wheel, but after everything that had happened, I just couldn’t face the long drive home after dark.

  Sean watched his mother’s retreating back, his face impassive. “Daddy’s giving Mommy her pills now.” Dylan, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a picture book on penguins spread out before him, nodded sagely.

  “Mommy’s got a headache,” offered Julie. “Just like Abigail.” She held out her stuffed toy for inspection, a plush pink rabbit whose fur had been loved off in many places.

  I stroked Abigail’s threadbare ears. “Does Abigail need an aspirin?”

  Julie shook her head. “Uh-uh. Abby took her Prozac.”

  Under other circumstances, I might have laughed. But, sadly, last night appeared to have been business as usual in the Cardinale household, and that was no laughing matter.

  So I ended up staring at the ceiling for hours, comforted by the familiar noises a house makes at night—the compressor cycling on and off in the refrigerator, the ice maker dumping its cubes, the furnace in the basement rumbling to life. I waited, dozing, for the sound of running water or a flushing toilet to let me know that someone else was stirring, an indication it might be OK to get up. But the first sound I heard was not the flushing of a toilet, but the thump of heavy footsteps on the porch, followed by two short rings of the doorbell.

  I checked the display on the VCR: 6:45. Who could be calling at this hour?

  I threw off the quilt and swung my legs over the side of the bed, then stopped. You can’t answer the door like this, you idiot. In lieu of a nightgown I was wearing one of Scott’s extra-large T-shirts with an insurance company logo emblazoned in yellow and black across my chest. My only accessory was a pair of fuzzy orange socks. The doorbell rang again, more impatiently, it seemed. I stumbled into the living room, calling for Scott. Somewhere a door banged. In the entrance hall I grabbed a raincoat off a hook, then peered through the long, rectangular window to the right of the door. Two people stood on the porch, a man and a woman, similarly dressed in winter overcoats. They both wore gloves. The woman was slapping her upper arms for warmth while the man held our Baltimore Sun, wrapped in a yellow plastic bag, in his hand. I doubted he was the paperboy.

  “Just a minute!” I called through the door. “I’m not dressed.” I slipped into the raincoat and pulled it securely around me before opening the door.

  “Yes?”

  The woman stepped forward. “Mrs. Cardinale? I’m Sergeant Williams, and this is my partner, Detective Duvall, Baltimore City police.” She flipped open a leather wallet containing her badge and held it about ten inches from my nose. “We’d like to talk to you about Dr. Sturges.”

  My heart fluttered, then began pounding wildly. “Dr. Sturges?” I stammered.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Officer Duvall. “May we come in?”

  I took a deep breath, recovered my manners from wherever they’d fled to, then swung the door wide. “Sure, but I think it’s my sister, Georgina, you’ll be wanting to talk to, not me. She’s still a
sleep.” I led them toward the living room, which was seldom used. “You’ll have to excuse my appearance.” I shrugged within my overcoat, my hands buried in its pockets. “I decided to spend the night with my sister quite suddenly, and I left home without a change of clothes.”

  Sergeant Williams turned her sharp black eyes on me. “Suddenly?”

  Oops! I’d have to watch my choice of words. I was trying to think of a nonincriminating reply when Scott’s voice boomed from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my socks.

  “Hannah was baby-sitting for my wife and me. We were out quite late.”

  I swallowed a gasp and stared, amazed, at my brother-in-law, who had shambled into the room, shirtless, still zipping up his jeans.

  Scott ignored me. “How can we help you, Officers?”

  “May we sit down?” Sergeant Williams gestured toward the chintz-covered sofa.

  “Sure, sure. Be my guest.” Scott waved his hand vaguely. “Hannah, why don’t you go see about the children?”

  I had no intention of leaving the room. Scott had already told one lie, and if he was going to tell any more whoppers, I wanted to know about it. I looked hopefully at Sergeant Williams. “Don’t you need me here?”

  “No, not right now. Go ahead and see to the children, but we’ll want to talk to you before we leave.” Not the right answer.

  When I left the room rather reluctantly, Scott slid the pocket door shut between us. I thought about doing as I had been told, but as my mother will tell you, I’ve never been very good at that. So I stood outside the door instead, my ear practically glued to the paneling.

  “We understand your wife’s a patient of Dr. Sturges’s.” Officer Duvall spoke with a rich Jamaican accent.

  “She is. So what’s the problem?”

  “Diane Sturges was killed sometime yesterday afternoon.”

  “Killed? Oh my God! How?” I could just imagine Scott, the consummate salesman, shaping his face into a mask of surprise and dismay.